PERSONAL INJURY: Superior Court holds defendant entitled only to limited discovery of plaintiff’s social media postings

The plaintiff alleged that she was sexually abused by a faculty member while she was a student at the defendant school from 1987 to 1988 and brought action against the school for failing to prevent the teacher’s conduct, failing to ensure a safe environment and fostering a culture in which others blamed the plaintiff for the termination of the faculty member.  The plaintiff alleged physical, psychological and emotional injuries.  The defendant filed a motion to compel with respect to, among other things, its discovery request for a list of all of the plaintiff’s social networking accounts, the plaintiff’s username and password for each account, all email addresses she used in the past ten years, all photos/videos posted to her accounts from 1987 to the present that represented any physical or social activity she was involved in and a list of postings she had removed from any such account.  The plaintiff objected to providing such information.  The Court held that the defendant was entitled to limited discovery of the plaintiff’s accounts with respect to evidence relevant to her claims of physical, psychological and emotional injury.  The Court further held that the defendant was not entitled to the plaintiff’s usernames and passwords, but that the plaintiff should turn that information over to her attorney: Briggs v. The Kent School Corp., CV17-6015476; Nov. 9, 2018